


A Hundred Days Too Late

by elumish



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode: s03e17 A Hundred Days, F/M, Friendship, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-03
Updated: 2015-04-03
Packaged: 2018-03-21 01:21:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3672168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elumish/pseuds/elumish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It felt uncomfortably like déjà vu.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Hundred Days Too Late

Carter knew that she had a number of character flaws, chief being, possibly, that she had taken to thinking of herself as Carter. A symptom of spending too much time with Colonel O’Neill, probably. But her main character flaw, she knew, was that she tended to think things were her fault—though, to be fair, they usually were.  


This, though, was almost definitely her fault. It had taken her too long to engineer Sokar’s damn device, and now Colonel O’Neil didn’t want to come home. Go home—coming home implied somehow coming with her, which obviously wasn’t the case—but the point was the same. He wanted to stay on P5C-768, and she was a hundred percent sure the only reason he was coming back with them was that he was a good soldier, no matter how much he liked to pretend otherwise.  


Maybe closer to ninety-eight percent sure; a hundred percent was too sure, and as a scientist, she didn’t like absolutes.  


Regardless, it was pretty clear that he had gotten attached to Edora—to Laira—and now he didn’t want to come back.  


“Why are you upset with Colonel O’Neill, Major Carter?”  


Carter looked over at Teal’c, who was standing across from her as they waited for Colonel O’Neil to finish his medical exam. They had gone through the standard tests, but he had to go through extra medical debriefs because it had been so long. They were all waiting outside the infirmary; it wasn’t quite standard regulations, but after a hundred days, they all wanted to make sure the Colonel was okay.  


She shook her head. “I’m not upset with him.” Upset with herself, but not with him.  


Teal’c stared at her with what looked like mild curiosity, though for Teal’c that was basically like him having a neon question mark floating over his head. “When was the last time you slept, Major Carter?”  


Carter couldn’t readily think of an answer, though if he had asked she could have told him off the top of her head the size of the particles they had shot through the gate to eight significant figures—nine if she thought about it—so she settled for, “Earlier.”  


He looked as though he wanted to say more, as much as Teal’c ever looked like he wanted to say anything, but was interrupted by the door opening and Colonel O’Neill’s cheerful announcement of, “All clear, T. No weird parasites, no alien STDs—”  


_Oh, shit._ He seemed to realize she was standing there as the words left his mouth, and he just stared for a second, something working behind his eyes. Quickly, she looked away; she could take the blankness from P5C-768, but she didn’t think she could take disappointment, or anger.  


Teal’c cut through the silence with his deep voice, saying, “I am glad you are well, O’Neill. I was about to tell Major Carter that perhaps she should rest.”  


“I’m fine, sir.” No need for her weakness to be another failure in the Colonel’s eyes right now. “Really.”  


“Get some rest, Carter.” Colonel O’Neill ran a surprisingly tan—shouldn’t he have been as tan as he was going to get before his time on P5C-768, going on so many missions in the sun?—hand through his hair, sending it into even further disarray. “We’re all on 72-hour stand down.”  


“I have work to finish, sir.” Projects she had abandoned to work on Sokar’s weapon.  


He sighed. “I don’t want to stand here and argue with you, Major; you look worse than I do. Get some rest. That’s an order.” And then he swept past her down the hall before she could get a response out. Teal’c shot her a meaningful—if somewhat indecipherable—look before following after him, and she was left watching them walk away. It felt uncomfortably like déjà vu, and that was not a thought she wanted to be having at the moment.  


\--  


Carter was a bit ashamed to admit that she hid in her lab for as long as possible. Though, she reasoned, she wasn’t really hiding—she genuinely had work to do, and she was doing it. She was just doing it while making sure not to cross paths with the Colonel—or Daniel or Teal’c, if she were to be honest with herself.  


It had taken her two days to remember the Colonel was back on Earth, and she still woke to the thought that she should be in the lab, working on the way to bring him home. And then her mind would catch up and her body would equilibrate and she would remember that he was home—and didn’t want to be.  


“Are you avoiding me, Carter?”  


Carter shot to her feet so fast her chair skittered halfway across the room—damn, now she was going to have to get that—and spun to face Colonel O’Neill, who stood silhouetted in the doorway of her lab. “I have work to do—to finish.”  


“You haven’t left your lab in three days.”  


That was blatantly untrue. “I have been to the commissary for a number of meals, and have slept in my base quarters.” Except for the first night, when she fell asleep at her desk, the edge of her hand pressed on the space bar of her keyboard so when she woke she had four-hundred twelve pages of blankness.  


It looked like he sighed, though it was difficult to tell with the way the light was behind him. “Let me rephrase this: why are you avoiding me, Carter?”  


That sounded like an order now, when before it had just been a question, and she found herself straightening instinctively. She hated having to say this, but he was her commanding officer, and she would follow the order. “Because you’re angry at me.” He stared at her for so long that she started to doubt even her knowledge of that. It was an unnerving feeling, not knowing what was going on. “Sorry, sir.”  


“Why do you think I’m angry at you?”  


Heat flared in her cheeks, and she felt the distinct urge to go hide under her desk. Or perhaps one of the lab tables; they should be at least a little less uncomfortable. Anything, though, would be better than having to say this out loud. “I heard what you said to Laira on P5C—uh, Edora. You didn’t want to come back.”  


“Carter—”  


Now that she had started saying it, she had to finish. “If I had just gotten finished the device sooner, we could have gotten you back earlier. I’m sorry, sir. I should have been able to—”  


“Carter.” Carter broke off and looked away, biting back any more babbling that was threatening to come out. “Carter, look at me.”  


Another order, and she looked over at him, where he was still standing in the doorway, his face somewhere close to impassive. The thought stuck her suddenly—she wished he would look at her the way he had looked at Laira. Just once. But it was a fool’s thought, and she wasn’t a fool, not usually. Not when she could help it, and she damn well could now.  


He took a step towards her. “I never expected to get home. Not really. The fact that you managed to pull it off—it’s a miracle. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”  


Yeah, well, she should have managed that miracle earlier. Before he became at risk of contracting alien STDs from Laira. “Yes, sir.”  


“Get some rest. I mean it.” He started to turn away, then stopped just as she was heading over to grab her chair. “Thanks, Carter.”  


She turned to look at him, but he was already walking away. “You’re welcome, sir.”  


He gave a small wave, then headed down the hallway, giving her a brief wave as he went. And she found, for the first time in three months, that she was smiling.


End file.
